Our neighborhood is doing a haunted house collective this year. The idea is for kids to stop at each participating house as they trick or treat around the big loop. The neighbors I've talked to have planned some pretty tame stuff. The one guy Doug is doing the peeled grapes in bowl thing. The guy on the other side of me with the Great Dane has a crystal ball that he's going to do quick seances with. And another lady who just moved has connected up a bunch of cardboard boxes into a spooky tunnel. I guess it's okay for the little kids, but the neighborhood is getting older these days.

My grandfather was a psychiatrist at a mental hospital in the late 60s so I have a bunch of his cool stuff. I'm going to convert the garage into a padded psychiatric cell. And I'm going to dress up my wife's massage table into a bed with restraints and all that spooky stuff. Then I've got my grandpa's old electroconvulsive therapy machine hooked up so I can induce seizures in the kids. When I amp it up, the lights flicker so the ambiance even outside the house is going to be spectacular. We just can't use the dryer while it's running.

Conal Cochran: Enjoy the horror-thon, doctor... and don't forget to watch the big giveaway afterwards.Daniel Challis: Why, Cochran, why?Conal Cochran: Do I need a reason? Mr. Kupfer was right, you know... I do love a good joke and this is the best ever, a joke on the children. But there's a better reason... you don't really know much about Halloween... you thought no further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy.[pauses]Conal Cochran: It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we'd be waiting... in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in... to sit by our fires of turf.[pauses]Conal Cochran: Halloween... the festival of Samhain! The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red... with the blood of animals and children.Daniel Challis: Sacrifices.Conal Cochran: It was part of our world... our craft.Daniel Challis: Witchcraft.Conal Cochran: To us, it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now... it's time again. In the end... we don't decide these things, you know... the planets do. They're in alignment, and it's time again. The world's going to change tonight, doctor, I'm glad you'll be able to watch it. And... happy Halloween.

--- years ago yoko ono gave a one person performance art fund raiser show in NYC. she was seated on a simple chair on stage while members of the audience were welcome to come up one at a time and make a modification to her clothing using a large able pair of scissors.

as ms.ono sat alone on stage and people of all sorts came up one by one to participate in the artistic statement yoko slowly became aware of the depth of the situation she had put herself in. her mind wandered to Andy Warhol's studio the Factory and the near fatal attack that occurred there.

ms.ono thought about her position in life, all that she had, all she could lose. what she had accomplished and what she still hoped one day to do. all the while a variety of characters, the type of people in NYC that would be attracted to such theatrics, continued to come on stage and wield this menacing pair of scissors near her flesh as her clothing was rendered useless.

yoko was painfully aware of her solitude on stage. aware there were others watching from backstage that were far enough away to be useless if someone...decided to do something. that her situation was not well thought out, that it was actually foolish, a dangerous thing indeed and she fought against her own imagination, working hard to keep her composure and to resist bolting from her chair. all the while strangers approached her, those scissors coming toward her time and time again.

The best HH I was ever in was at an abandoned nursery. The creators converted the office/showroom into a few scenes and then ran you out the back where the floral used to be. Walking in the dark and creepy woods, there were actors and chain saws everywhere to scare the crud out of you. The last scene was in a long greenhouse that they flooded with fog and blinding lights. You couldn't see anything in front of you. Here, there were multiple chainsaws goosing you on your legs trying to get you to let go of your water. It was awesome.

/yes, they would grab and goose you despite them telling you they wouldn't.

// saw them take people out of the crowds and use them for prisoners for the next group of people walking through

spentmiles:Our neighborhood is doing a haunted house collective this year. The idea is for kids to stop at each participating house as they trick or treat around the big loop. The neighbors I've talked to have planned some pretty tame stuff. The one guy Doug is doing the peeled grapes in bowl thing. The guy on the other side of me with the Great Dane has a crystal ball that he's going to do quick seances with. And another lady who just moved has connected up a bunch of cardboard boxes into a spooky tunnel. I guess it's okay for the little kids, but the neighborhood is getting older these days.

My grandfather was a psychiatrist at a mental hospital in the late 60s so I have a bunch of his cool stuff. I'm going to convert the garage into a padded psychiatric cell. And I'm going to dress up my wife's massage table into a bed with restraints and all that spooky stuff. Then I've got my grandpa's old electroconvulsive therapy machine hooked up so I can induce seizures in the kids. When I amp it up, the lights flicker so the ambiance even outside the house is going to be spectacular. We just can't use the dryer while it's running.

The House of Shock in New Orleans has been doing this for 15 or so years. Also, its not uncommon to see well known Metal musicians as some of the characters in the haunted house itself. Its a really cool experience.

I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

casual disregard:I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

Opeth is/was heavily influenced by Morbid Angel. Try some of that, but the old stuff - with David Vincent on vox.

casual disregard:I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

sotua:casual disregard: I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

Opeth is/was heavily influenced by Morbid Angel. Try some of that, but the old stuff - with David Vincent on vox.

casual disregard:I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

If you want a more serious and artistic take on a house where nothing is what it seems to be, visit the "Haus ur" installation on your next trip to Europe. I have never been in a creepier place - and that all without any Hollywood-style effects. This place seriously farks with your mind, and leaves a long, long aftertaste...

I took the family through one of these in Myrtle Beach about 10 years ago.I thought it was really cool Though no one actually put their hands on the customers. I don't think I could have stood for that.That shiat goes straight to the amygdala.

dstrick44:Though no one actually put their hands on the customers. I don't think I could have stood for that.

Isn't that illegal? TFA wouldn't load for me so I actually wasn't able to read it*.A friend runs a public Haunted House every year and that's one of the main points he drives to all of his 'actors'; get in their face, scream all you want, DO NOT lay a finger on anyone in any regard. He even tells them that if someone walking through goes to touch them to back away and not allow it to happen, even if it looks like they're the ones doing the fleeing.

CapeFearCadaver:dstrick44: Though no one actually put their hands on the customers. I don't think I could have stood for that.

Isn't that illegal? TFA wouldn't load for me so I actually wasn't able to read it*.A friend runs a public Haunted House every year and that's one of the main points he drives to all of his 'actors'; get in their face, scream all you want, DO NOT lay a finger on anyone in any regard. He even tells them that if someone walking through goes to touch them to back away and not allow it to happen, even if it looks like they're the ones doing the fleeing.

/*just came for the death metal in the HL

That takes away a lot of the fear factor for me is that I know they CANNOT touch you in any way. Back in the old days when yyou'd have a hand grasping your ankle... *shiver*

CapeFearCadaver:casual disregard: I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

Also, this just seems like a bad idea..."An actress stands naked in a bloody bathroom where she shrieks at participants."Honestly, I hope they are being safe with this one. Because if they are expecting a naked woman to be shrieking all night long at this thing, what happens when someone decides they want to rape her and the rest of the people think it's part of the show?

-I'd be less worried if I didn't remember a story from last year where a kid in one of these shows was supposed to be pretending to be hanged, and actually managed to hang herself by accident. The body sat there hanging for hours with people just walking by commenting on how realistic it looked.

R3:CapeFearCadaver: casual disregard: I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

Novembers Doom, maybe Neurosis...although now we are veering into Isis/Pelican/Tool territory.

Neurosis and Tool are as good a starting point as any... though I've found that Neurosis fans tend to lean heavily toward punk/trash; and Tool... Tool would be a good one; the 'jocky-ish', Former Marine I was seeing actually started there... in his mid-thirties. But he did previously enjoy watching me dance to Atheist's Elements while I was cooking dinner...

/I've never heard of any of those 4 other bands that casual disregard mentioned.

CapeFearCadaver:dstrick44: Though no one actually put their hands on the customers. I don't think I could have stood for that.

Isn't that illegal? TFA wouldn't load for me so I actually wasn't able to read it*.A friend runs a public Haunted House every year and that's one of the main points he drives to all of his 'actors'; get in their face, scream all you want, DO NOT lay a finger on anyone in any regard. He even tells them that if someone walking through goes to touch them to back away and not allow it to happen, even if it looks like they're the ones doing the fleeing.

/*just came for the death metal in the HL

Apparently not here:

including extreme disorientation in a room filled with fog where your face is masked, your hands are strapped to a table and ear-piercing death metal music is blaring through headphones while a screaming actor bashes a mallet around your fingers.

KrispyKritter:Conal Cochran: Enjoy the horror-thon, doctor... and don't forget to watch the big giveaway afterwards.Daniel Challis: Why, Cochran, why?Conal Cochran: Do I need a reason? Mr. Kupfer was right, you know... I do love a good joke and this is the best ever, a joke on the children. But there's a better reason... you don't really know much about Halloween... you thought no further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy.[pauses]Conal Cochran: It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we'd be waiting... in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in... to sit by our fires of turf.[pauses]Conal Cochran: Halloween... the festival of Samhain! The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red... with the blood of animals and children.Daniel Challis: Sacrifices.Conal Cochran: It was part of our world... our craft.Daniel Challis: Witchcraft.Conal Cochran: To us, it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now... it's time again. In the end... we don't decide these things, you know... the planets do. They're in alignment, and it's time again. The world's going to change tonight, doctor, I'm glad you'll be able to watch it. And... happy Halloween.

--- years ago yoko ono gave a one person performance art fund raiser show in NYC. she was seated on a simple chair on stage while members of the audience were welcome to come up one at a time and make a modification to her clothing using a large able pair of scissors.

as ms.ono sat alone on stage and people of all sorts came up one by one to participate in the artistic statement yoko slowly became aware of the depth of the situation she had put herself in. her mind wandered to Andy Warhol's studio the Factory and the near fatal attack that occurred there.

ms.ono thought about her position in life, all that she had, all s ...

including extreme disorientation in a room filled with fog where your face is masked, your hands are strapped to a table and ear-piercing death metal music is blaring through headphones while a screaming actor bashes a mallet around your fingers.

That sounds like someone grabs you to do all of that.

Well damn. Just tried the link again, still won't load; I'm really curious now. Where is this?

sascrotch:The House of Shock in New Orleans has been doing this for 15 or so years. Also, its not uncommon to see well known Metal musicians as some of the characters in the haunted house itself. Its a really cool experience.

including extreme disorientation in a room filled with fog where your face is masked, your hands are strapped to a table and ear-piercing death metal music is blaring through headphones while a screaming actor bashes a mallet around your fingers.

That sounds like someone grabs you to do all of that.

Well damn. Just tried the link again, still won't load; I'm really curious now. Where is this?

CapeFearCadaver:R3: CapeFearCadaver: casual disregard: I really like Opeth but I find the rest of death metal to be a rather hard sell. In fact their latest album, Heritage, really isn't death metal at all. Anyone got suggestions for an Opeth connoisseur? I also enjoy Giant Squid, Stolen Babies, and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum if that helps. I did not like Unexpect, so let's not go in that direction.

Novembers Doom, maybe Neurosis...although now we are veering into Isis/Pelican/Tool territory.

Neurosis and Tool are as good a starting point as any... though I've found that Neurosis fans tend to lean heavily toward punk/trash; and Tool... Tool would be a good one; the 'jocky-ish', Former Marine I was seeing actually started there... in his mid-thirties. But he did previously enjoy watching me dance to Atheist's Elements while I was cooking dinner...

/I've never heard of any of those 4 other bands that casual disregard mentioned.